Synchronicities

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
When the pain that shoots down
from her right hip to her leg returns,
she wonders if it has something to do
with air pressure, or the rain, or
the humidity and all the recent swings
in weather. Where did she read
that the body is its own barometer,
also its most faithful timekeeper?
Coming from the store, she hefts
the grocery bags like they are
weights at the gym; she pins
her shoulders back, as she is always
reminded to do. She tries to walk
more, move more, push and lift
while trying to find that center.
The dark fades later every day,
but she knows it is only being true
to its own season. She likes
the quiet more and more. How
much time is there for feeding
the senses with remaining pleasure,
for soothing the heart's agitations?
The rain starts up again. She hears
a newly clear pinging just because
the gutters were cleaned that weekend.

Poetry Blog Digest 2024, Week 18

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond. Although I tend to quote my favorite bits, please do click through and read the whole posts. You can also browse the blog digest archive at Via Negativa or, if you’d like it in your inbox, subscribe on Substack (where the posts might be truncated by some email providers).

A shorter digest than usual this week, reflecting I suppose a general exhaustion among poetry bloggers after NaPoWriMo and the winding down of the academic year. Those who did blog were in a reflective mood, writing about self-acceptance for poets, points of connection, finding balance, considering the reader, and more. Enjoy.

Continue reading “Poetry Blog Digest 2024, Week 18”

Which End is Better

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
"Is everything good also bad?"
~ Laura Read


I'm not good either at driving. I came
to driving late. Unlike the way kids here
take driver's ed in high school, I was almost
30 when I got behind the wheel. My father
had a Mitsubishi Galant, which he bought
but himself could not drive. He hired a man
named Bruno with one lazy eye and a head
of white hair to drive for him 6 days a week
and as needed. I guess I'm good enough
at driving local, but terrified of getting on
the expressway. That's why on the whole,
I think I'm a bad driver. I'm also bad at reading
maps. I look for landmarks to memorize:
gnarled trees, old buildings, the high school
across from the middle school; the church-
yard where every Wednesday in summer
there's a farmer's market. But I'm pretty good
at reading the room for weird energy signals
coming from whoever's there, who I'd rather
not shake hands with. I'm good at finishing
most tasks I've been given, and bad at saying
no. I'm good at poaching eggs with no need
for fancy equipment. An old, dented pan,
boiling water; I turn off the heat, slide each
egg in, and cover the lot with a lid. I leave it
undisturbed while I toast bagels and set
the table. Then I lift them gently out of
the water. Do you also find it hard not to wear
your heart on your sleeve? I'm bad at hiding
my own true feelings. But for the most part,
when asked to pass the butter and the butter
knife, I remember I'm not supposed to point
the tip outward toward its recipient. What
am I supposed to hold then—the blade?

Fire and brimstone

Sam Pepys and me

(Lord’s day). Mr. Creed and I went to the red-faced Parson’s church, and heard a good sermon of him, better than I looked for. Then home, and had a good dinner, and after dinner fell in some talk in Divinity with Mr. Stevens that kept us till it was past Church time.
Anon we walked into the garden, and there played the fool a great while, trying who of Mr. Creed or I could go best over the edge of an old fountain wall, and I won a quart of sack of him.
Then to supper in the banquet house, and there my wife and I did talk high, she against and I for Mrs. Pierce (that she was a beauty), till we were both angry.
Then to walk in the fields, and so to our quarters, and to bed.

arson’s church
heard a sermon

better than some divinity
that kept us in

and who could go
over the wall of talk

high as we were
to walk in the fields


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 5 May 1661.

Red-eyed

Sam Pepys and me

Up in the morning and took coach, and so to Gilford, where we lay at the Red Lyon, the best Inn, and lay in the room the King lately lay in, where we had time to see the Hospital, built by Archbishop Abbott, and the free school, and were civilly treated by the Mayster.
So to supper, and to bed, being very merry about our discourse with the Drawers concerning the minister of the Town, with a red face and a girdle. So to bed, where we lay and sleep well.

up in the morning
to a red room

where it is May
and very merry

a discourse with
the minister of sleep


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 4 May 1661.

Long Grief

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
When my father was buried, cremation
was not yet the common practice it is today.

So he is buried in the northwestern section
of the Baguio Cemetery. But wait, all of a sudden

I'm not so sure. I think he's buried in a crypt, meaning
his coffin with he himself in it, or what used to be

the shell of himself dressed in his best dark suit
and tie down to his best polished shoes, was slid into

a cement rectangle, then sealed, then given a coat
of white paint and a marble marker. I can't remember

who decided on any of these things, since I was young
and petrified by this colossal, new grief. There was a brief

argument about what direction he should face, as if it would
change anything if his head pillowed on satin pointed toward

the mountains and the space between, where the sun
went down each evening. You might think this is just another

poem, again, about grieving my father's death. It's been
nearly five decades but I can still see his hands, laid one atop

the other; and between them, a rosary broken to signify how,
despite our sadness, the rest of us weren't ready to follow.

Doppelgänger

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
Where is she now, the one you say left you
in the swamp of your late awakening?
And where is the one you pined for in dream
after waking dream? She and I are one
and the same. You think only one of us halved
her heart when she left you. You think
leaving means only that you could not see
the marks our bodies left in space: finger
trails in a spill of flour and sugar, but not
enough wisps of hair to embroider
your name on a pillowcase edge. She comes
to me when both of us are nearly
flattened by the unpredictability of time, and
one of us tells the other she can rest.

Day hiker

Sam Pepys and me

Early to walk with Mr. Creed up and down the town, and it was in his and some others’ thoughts to have got me made free of the town, but the Mayor, it seems, unwilling, and so they could not do it.
Then to the payhouse, and there paid off the ship, and so to a short dinner, and then took coach, leaving Mrs. Hater there to stay with her husband’s friendsand we to Petersfield, having nothing more of trouble in all my journey, but the exceeding unmannerly and most epicurelike palate of Mr. Creed.
Here my wife and I lay in the room the Queen lately lay at her going into France.

early to walk
free of the town

to a house in the sand
having no more of a journey

but the cure
like a room in France


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 3 May 1661.

Mayday

the song comes from a long way off
slow as an old man making water

like a sort of sky
with one persistent cloud

the song brings its own weather
to a climate of fear

filling every redbreast
with territorial ambitions

until a brown thrasher
gets a hold of it and shakes

upside upside down down
get rid of it get rid of it

as the trees launch their fleets
unfurl their sails

cells vibrate in concert
each at its own pitch

a music not meant for any ears
this side of eden

where pollen still turns
our jack boots green

Tendrel

river in November light between bare woods and mountain
- for Nicole W.


When our friend the Tibetan
Studies scholar teaches us this word,

རྟེན་འབྲེལ་, she puts her hands together, touching
fingertips. It means what the Buddha said:

If this exists, that exists; if this ceases to exist,
that also ceases to exist.
That is, every thing,

every experience, comes into being from its
dependence on and relationship with other

things. Just as fog skims off the oyster-
colored waters of the bay to later pearl

in the skinfolds of heavy rainclouds, just as bitter
rinds of fruit retreat from the hungry mouth—

so too do we live in tensile connection to other
beings. So I will rejoice to learn of your happiness,

and grieve with you because your sorrow is our
common sorrow. Though I am often lonely,

I am aware of a brighter filament still
at the edge of my consciousness: I know

it's there, even when it's not there. And I refuse
to believe that even hatred or emptiness

root in only one place, with no further promise
of changing into something else. Someone once

told me that if I forget to pay attention, I might miss
small signs and portents altering the color of

an often terrible world. I might think this moment
is all there is, though the wheel never stops turning.